


What Comes Next

by Golyadkin



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Aging, Domestic, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Series 03 Fix-It: Children of Earth (Torchwood), Survivor Guilt, references to canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:53:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26624725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golyadkin/pseuds/Golyadkin
Summary: "I survived Torchwood One – that’s a great enough feat in itself – but Torchwood Three as well… The chances are astronomical. By all accounts I should have been dead a thousand times over, and yet…”“And yet, here you are.”“Here I am.” There was a slight waver in his voice, though he remained stoic as ever, and his eyes had been pulled back up to stare into their own blue depths. “Against all odds, here I am. And now I don’t know what to do.”
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 7
Kudos: 56





	What Comes Next

Sleep didn’t come easy to Jack. He didn’t know if it was some side-effect of his condition or the result of years of experiences that made it hard to quiet his brain, but the result was the same, and it had been so long since he had slept more than a few hours that he couldn’t quite remember if he ever had.

There were certain things that made it easier of course (sex being among his favourites, naturally) but even at his most exhausted he spent most nights lying awake waiting for the soft glow on the horizon to tell him the day had turned and he may as well be getting up. And with all those years under his belt operating on minimal sleep, it was almost unnerving the nights he did manage to pass out before dawn. They left him feeling groggy and confused and it almost wasn’t worth it. Almost.

Sleeping next to Ianto was a different experience.

Listening to his breathing at night, feeling that warmth next to him, the slight shifts in the mattress anytime he moved, it was comforting. It was getting familiar. It broke his heart.

Now Ianto was getting older. His mid-thirties were within view and suddenly he was looking his age. That wasn’t to say he had never looked 23 or 24 or so on, but now the seriousness suited his face. The grim set of his brow made sense all of a sudden. People no longer looked at him with shock when they discovered his age, but rather nodded in sympathy and agreed that these were difficult times. People no longer looked at him with Jack and raised their eyebrows at their difference in age. They looked damn near equal these days. Which was to say that in a few years they would be diverging in the other direction.

Jack thought the age suited Ianto in more than just looks. He was less tense than he had been and more secure in his abilities. That came with saving the world a few dozen times, he supposed, but more than that it was almost like Ianto had come to terms with existing. Like he no longer felt as though life were simply an ordeal he had accidently stumbled into. Jack didn’t dare to think that was because of him, but part of him couldn’t help feeling a little proud regardless, and the way Ianto smiled at him and consulted with him and asked him, “Will you be home tonight?” rather than, “Will you be coming over?” made him feel that warm familiarity and comfort more than anything else.

Home.

They had never made it official. They never made anything official, it all just sort of happened and happened and kept on happening until any other option seemed laughable. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept in his bunker that wasn’t the result of some extenuating circumstance. Even coming to Ianto’s late seemed more natural than not coming at all. Even creeping in at three in the morning, keeping the lights off, and slipping quietly beneath the covers without waking him felt more right.

And he still didn’t sleep like a normal person, even with all that familiarity, but he didn’t mind so much. Ianto would sleep away next to him, safe and sound, looking perfect and beautiful and wonderful, and that was enough for him. And in the morning when he woke up, not remembering having fallen asleep, Ianto would already be away in the kitchen preparing coffee, singing to himself under his breath, and it was all so blissfully domestic (Rift permitting of course). Then Ianto would show up in the doorway, in his robe with little else underneath, a coffee in each hand, and get back in bed where the two of them would enjoy the morning together as though their lives resembled something close to normal.

But on this particular morning when Jack woke up, groggy from a rare and disquieting dream, it felt as though something were different. Ianto wasn’t there, which was to be expected, but there were no sounds coming from the kitchen either. No humming or walking or grinding of beans. No smell of dark roast to chase sleep from the room. It was quiet and empty, nothing but the sound of birds outside singing in the sun.

Jack tried not to think too hard about it. Ianto had probably run out of beans or cream or something and run out to get it, he thought, though even he knew how ridiculous that sounded. Ianto was probably in the hallway talking to a neighbour he had run into picking up the morning paper. He was probably there. Somewhere.

But the anxiety that something might have happened, that the Rift had opened up and swallowed him or an alien crept in while they slept and stole him away, was too great to ignore. Things had been going too well, Jack thought, they were well overdue for catastrophe.

But he tried to combat those thoughts, preferring instead to rely on the unlikely scenario that Ianto had simply stepped out for something and there was a note waiting for him in the kitchen.

That thought was enough to get his feet on the floor. Ianto was deadly predictable and if he had gone anywhere unexpectedly there was certain to be a note. On his way to the kitchen Jack grabbed his robe, noting with some small comfort that Ianto’s wasn’t in it’s usual place on the other hook, which meant, very likely, he was wearing it. Jack had gotten in trouble often enough for leaving his own robe lying about the place that he knew the only two places a robe was allowed to be in this flat was on it’s owner’s shoulders or hanging from that hook.

Upon arriving in the kitchen Jack instantly noticed every little thing that was out of place. The coffee pot, still empty was sitting on the counter in front of the percolator. The beans, unground, had been retrieved from the cabinet but then left by the sink. The newspaper had indeed been brought in and was sitting partly unfolded on the island, but there was nothing particularly interesting on the page it was open to that would have gotten Ianto to deviate from routine.

In his post-sleep fog, Jack wandered through, tiles cold under his feet and sunlight glinting painfully in his eye. Their mugs were still in the cupboard, the only mismatched items Ianto could stand to keep around, and Jack took them down as he tried to think of where else Ianto could be. He set them on the counter near the empty coffee pot and stared down into them for a long moment before remembering he was meant to be looking for someone.

At a loss, he left the kitchen for the living room. It was spotless. They didn’t spend much time in it, but Ianto cleaned it with as much devotion as the rest of the flat and the blanket draped over the back of the couch was refolded every few days regardless of whether or not it had been used. It was about routine, Ianto had told him, and less about cleanliness. He liked routine. It made him feel in control. Jack didn’t see much attraction in routine, so he supposed it was good he had Ianto there to do the routine for him. He’d never been much good at keeping places clean. He’d never been much good at feeling at home enough to want to keep it clean.

His fingers found the edge of the blanket and tugged it taught. It was soft and held a lot of good memories in its tight weave. It had followed Ianto between apartments whereas the couch had been new, and it was one of the few items outside of the hub and his own clothes that Jack felt any sort of attachment to. He smoothed out the wrinkle he had caused in it, bringing it back to the perfect state he had found it in, and wondered if Ianto was possibly on the balcony.

He wasn’t. It was too cold still to stay out there too long, but the fresh air did clear Jack’s head some. He squinted out into the residential street beyond and wondered if he had ever really looked around from here. There wasn’t much to look at. Unlike Jack, Ianto preferred a quiet neighbourhood. The only noise came from birds and kids and the occasional dog, and it suited them fine. It was easier to forget about the outside world when you couldn’t hear it.

But as his mind cleared, the anxiety that he still hadn’t found Ianto was beginning to eat at him. He went back inside and looked around again from the rooms edge. Were his keys on the hook? Were his shoes by the door? Was the door even locked?

He had just turned around to go back to the bedroom with plans to check if Ianto’s phone was still there when he noticed the bathroom door was open. For a moment he was dumbstruck by the fact he hadn’t even thought to check the bathroom, but to his own credit enough time had passed that he assumed any events taking place in a bathroom would have been over by now. There was certainly no sound of a shower or sink, there was no sweet scent of that air freshener Jack hated that Ianto insisted on using, the light wasn’t even on, there was just an open door.

But sure enough, when Jack looked inside there was Ianto, peering intently at himself in the mirror, nose inches from the glass.

“You know,” said Jack, causing Ianto to start, “you’ll see a lot more if you turn the light on.” He flipped the switch and Ianto blinked and squinted at him in the mirror.

“You’re up early,” he said.

“What are you doing?”

Ianto’s eyes turned from Jack’s reflection back to his own and his brow twitched. “I’m… I’m not sure,” he said in an absent sort of way. His hands were resting on the sink, no longer taking his weight, but gripping the porcelain lightly, as uncertain as their owner. “Looking at myself I suppose.”

Jack grinned and leaned against the doorframe. “Well, you are very easy to look at.”

“I look older.”

There was a pause in which Jack wasn’t sure what to say, trapped between wanting to brush past it and fall back into their morning routine and the feeling in his chest that something was off. “Older than what?” he asked, trying to hold onto that smile and failing.

“Myself,” said Ianto. “Or… I dunno, I haven’t really looked at myself in a while, I’m just sort of… surprised.”

Ah, so that was it. Aging. It got to everyone eventually, Jack thought, which was a phenomenon he could only observe and never experience. Not in the same way, at least. He’d had plenty of partners who had had a moment like this wherein they suddenly realized they were aging. It was easy to forget, he supposed, when the face of the man you were with never changed. With Jack around there was a touch of external reflection missing and it was easy to forget that he was the only one staying the same.

Even he had to admit he didn’t particularly notice how mature Ianto was looking these days. It was only when he looked in the mirror that he really noticed how young he himself looked by comparison. Compared to where they had started at least.

“Nothing wrong with getting older,” he said gently. Even if it was uncomfortable ground, at least it was ground he was familiar with.

“No,” said Ianto, “I suppose there isn’t.”

He trailed off into silence again, lost in his own reflection, and the haunted look on his face was beginning to bother Jack. Maybe it wasn’t so simple as he thought. Or maybe Ianto was just being uncharacteristically unpredictable and the lack of coffee was making Jack’s head a little funny.

Unable to find words to break the silence, he stepped forward into the bathroom and snaked his arms around Ianto’s waist, holding him close and resting his chin on his shoulder, peering into the mirror as well. Christ, but they looked different now. Good, obviously, but different. He could see why Ianto was so absorbed, but he wished there wasn’t such a tinge of fear about his eyes in the way he looked at himself.

“I look almost older than you,” said Ianto.

Jack laughed. “Not quite,” he said, pressing a kiss to Ianto’s neck. “You’ve got a few years in you yet.”

“And what happens then? I get dropped for a newer, shinier model?”

“Never.”

“But really, Jack.” Now Ianto’s eyes were turned back to Jack, boring deep into his reflection with an intensity he hadn’t expected. “What happens?”

Jack frowned. “What happens when?”

“When I get older. What happens then?”

“I’m not going to leave you, if that’s what you mean.”

“It’s not…” Ianto sighed and set his jaw, looking away from the mirror for the first time since Jack had arrived, his gaze coming to rest in the empty sink they were leaning over. “I never expected to get this far,” he said, voice quiet.

Jack tightened his grip on Ianto, frowning at himself. His hair was still disheveled from sleep and his chin, though never very good at growing anything substantial, was turning grey with stubble. Ianto looked a little worse for wear, but most of that was in his expression and the slant of his shoulders. Age had done nothing to him but make him more refined, even with mussed hair and a shadow darker than Jack’s at his jaw. Age suited him terrifically, but there was so much unease in him in that moment that he looked suddenly older and younger simultaneously. Old in his face, but young in his fear. It had been quite some time since he had been so uneasy in his own home and Jack wished he knew what to do or what to say.

“I always expected to die young,” Ianto continued. “Most Torchwood employees do.”

“You’re not most employees.”

Ianto laughed, barely more than a sigh. “I’m nothing special, though. I’ve got no real training – nothing medical or tech or combat – I’m just an archivist. I just stayed out of the way.”

“You are not ‘just’ anything,” Jack insisted, giving him a slight shake that made Ianto (blessedly) smile. “You’re more than you give yourself credit for.”

“It doesn’t change the fact,” Ianto pressed on, a little more firmly, “that I’m… an unexpected anomaly.”

“Anomaly?”

“In the Torchwood records. I survived Torchwood One – that’s a great enough feat in itself – but Torchwood Three as well… The chances are astronomical. By all accounts I should have been dead a thousand times over, and yet…”

“And yet, here you are.”

“Here I am.” There was a slight waver in his voice, though he remained stoic as ever, and his eyes had been pulled back up to stare into their own blue depths. “Against all odds, here I am. And now I don’t know what to do.”

Jack watched him for a moment before pulling back, letting his hands slip onto Ianto’s waist, and he leaned over to look at him, really look, though at this angle it was mostly profile. “You keep going,” he said, soft yet certain. “Whatever happens, Ianto Jones, you just have to keep going.”

Ianto’s brow began to crumple and when he finally looked directly at Jack his eyes were damp. “No rules anymore, eh?”

“Never were.”

Ianto nodded like he understood something at last that had been troubling him for eons and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Christ, what have we come to.” He let out a wet laugh, trying to fight back the tears, but it wasn’t working. His next laugh was half sob. “What the hell did I do to deserve this?”

Instantly, Jack took Ianto into his arms, like he had on so many occasions, and held him closer than ever, feeling his body wrack with sobs. He put his hand to the back of Ianto’s head and wished this wasn’t so familiar. “You made it through,” he murmured, feeling Ianto clutching the back of his robe. “What’s happened has happened, there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

Ianto took in a shuddering breath and buried his face in Jack’s neck, damp eyelashes brushing distantly against skin. “You act like it’s over,” he said, the words muffled with shirt and tears. “How can you know?”

“I just do.”

“I don’t.” He sucked in another breath. “I don’t feel like it’s ever over. I don’t see how it can be. What did I do different from them? Tosh and Owen and Suzie and Yvonne. What did I do that got me to the end of it all? It can’t be.”

Jack didn’t know what to say to that, simply leaned his head against Ianto’s and stroked his hair. They stayed like that for a long moment as the air settled around them in a low hush, and Jack tried not to look at the mirror, instead forcing his gaze back out into the kitchen where the world was waiting patiently for them. The sunlight was pressing in, still cool, but quickly warming to a golden glow. Something so familiar made so strange by nothing more than the angle of the sun. In the bathroom there was no light but the bulbs over the mirror that soaked them in incandescent yellow. It felt too small in here, but the kitchen and the world beyond it were frighteningly large.

“What happens next?” said Ianto, pulling his face away only to press his forehead into Jack’s shoulder. “There’s always gonna be a next, so what is it?”

Jack sighed. “I don’t know.”

“How can you not?”

“No one can. It’s never the same way twice. Nothing is ever the same.”

Ianto had stopped shaking, but his hands had yet to relinquish the fabric at Jacks’ back and they fiddled with it absently. “I’m nothing special. Not like you. Why did I live?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why can nothing ever just make sense?”

Jack grimaced. That was a question that had plagued him for centuries, and after all this time he still didn’t have a good answer. But he would try his best.

He twisted himself back a bit, forcing Ianto to look up, and took him by the face, holding him so they were eye to eye, his thumbs smoothing tears into skin. “You’re alive,” he said. “You made it this far. You can keep going, I know you can. That’s what makes you special. It doesn’t make sense. It never did. But we never needed sense to begin with, did we?”

Ianto gave a small laugh and closed his eyes, leaning into Jack’s touch.

“If the world making sense means losing you, then I don’t want it.” He pressed a kiss to Ianto’s forehead and then one to his lips. “I don’t want anything but this, right here with you. I just want you.”

Ianto’s eyes opened a crack and his gaze held such reverence and loss that Jack nearly joined him in tears. “I love you,” Ianto said softly.

“I love you too,” said Jack. He gave him another kiss, a little longer this time, and then smiled at him, pleased to receive a smile in return. “Now, I don’t know what comes next, I never did, but I know what happens today. We’re going to go to the kitchen and I’ll make breakfast and you’ll make coffee and we’ll read the paper and we’ll enjoy our morning, and then we’re going to go meet Gwen and Rhys for tea just like we planned. Nothing special. Don’t need it. And tomorrow? Who knows. Let’s just get through today, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good.” Another small kiss, and then Jack took Ianto’s hand and led him back out into the world.


End file.
